#because i know i do have a lot of like. very common autistic mannerisms

[tamagotchikgs]

ever since i was a kid i knew i should get lip fillers or a lip lift or something && i am still so in need of it i detest my lips n the general way my mouth moves so much but then even the thought of having 2 go for that feels so embarrassing because like. theyre gonna take one look at me n be like OH Boy. there is so much work 2 be done here. u are so hideous and this is the only thing you're doing ...?

[actual-changeling]

Muriel isn't a child, they're not stupid or immature, and they CAN take care of themselves—with that, welcome to Alex's unhinged meta corner, hinged edition.

We need to talk about Muriel, so let's dive right in.

Despite the way many people depict them, they are the exact same age as every other angel, fallen or otherwise, and treating them as lesser because their mannerisms and expressions don't match up with what you think an 'adult' should look like doesn't mean they aren't one.

Not to speak of the ableism that's inherent to that kind of thinking, and actually, you know what? Before I keep talking, I want to ask you a question.

It is very common to talk about Muriel as a 'child of divorce', being 'adopted' by Crowley, someone 'precious' that needs protecting, and a lot of titles and concepts along those lines.

The question is: If, say, Uriel were in their place—sent down to earth after not being there for more than five minutes ever—would you still call him everything you call Muriel now? Would you treat him the same way you're treating them?

Would you see him the same way, and if not, why?

The question is, if any other angel were in Muriel's position, would you also infantilize them the way you currently do with Muriel?

Feel free to actually answer that question on my post or in your own, because I am genuinely curious about the reasoning, especially behind 'no' as an answer.

Heaven completely neglected them just like they did with everyone else, they were completely alone in a big, empty white room with nothing but a glass desk and presumably a chair for six thousand years—and probably even longer than that. Having someone ask them a job-related question every couple centuries doesn't even BEGIN to scratch the surface of their social needs.

When they came down to earth, it was the equivalent of one's first day at a new job, at university, at school, anywhere you had not been before but now plan on being for a while.

You come across others that have been there for twenty years and look like omniscient gods from your point of view; they run the game while you don't even know which game you're supposed to be playing. This is one of the reasons why they read as autistic to many, including myself, because that's exactly what every social situation feels like to me. That's for another post, though.

Of course they're socially awkward and easily overwhelmed! They were dropped off in a capital city after—and let me emphasise this once more—being completely alone for millennia.

The highest of the angels ordered them to do a specific job, like, fuck, I'd be having a nervous breakdown in the lift and curl up in a corner for a few hours because that thought is terrifying. Especially because failure is not something heaven accepts. Especially because they know what happens to those who disobey or disappoint in whatever shape or form.

When we see them, it is in that exact situation—talking to their bosses that they've likely never talked to before, arriving in a new world, being around new people, in a new environment, new everything. It always reminds me of this quote from Modern Family.

Muriel was assigned a rank and job just like everyone else, and they deserve the same respect and acknowledgement for it as the Guardian of the Eastern Gate or the Archangels themselves. Muriel is probably really fucking good at what they do, they've had millennia of practice, but we simply never see them in their everyday situations. Give them some time and support, and they'll be up to speed in no time.

They are not a child—don't treat them like one.

[roseofthewind]

Furina and High-Masking Autism

A lot of people don’t know how to recognize high-masking autism because its presentation challenges many stereotypes about what autistic people are like, but Furina continues to be a perfect example of it.

It should go without saying, but I love Furina as a character and this analysis is in no way putting her down. Autism is an entirely neutral trait that carries through to adulthood, and if you have a strong negative reaction to the idea of a character you like being autistic, you have probably absorbed a lot of misconceptions about autism and have some unconscious prejudice to unpack.

In the paragraphs that follow, I am going to explain several autistic traits and give examples of how Furina displays each trait.

*thinking face on*

1. Autism is, at its core, a difference in the way the brain takes in, processes, and shares information. This can make it challenging to communicate with other people who don’t share this neurotype, but a high-masking autistic person has observed the way other people interact and spent years copying them, figuring out through trial and error how to act to best fit in and get the most positive responses from other people.

Furina’s ascension speech in Act V of the Fontaine Archon Quest, where she first presents herself to the people of Fontaine, is a great example of this observation of others with the goal of masking as well as possible. Furina initially gives the speech as comes naturally to her in a very straightforward and honest manner (also an autistic trait!). After the speech, she realizes that her citizens are responding with hostility to her humility and lack of authoritarianism, so she then plays off the original speech as a ruse and immediately redoes the entire thing more assertively according to the feedback she picked up on.

(Calm down, Furina… Think. Think. What do the people want? How would they imagine a god to speak and act?)

Fontaine AQ Act V, Chinese audio: (link starts video at 3:10:07) https://youtu.be/T-AbXi5bufk?si=eQADAWw6n8Sk0PZE&t=11407

This is the kind of social trial and error that many autistic people do over the course of years so that eventually we can say the “right thing” the first time around, and it’s a testimony to Furina’s skills as an actor that she course-corrects so quickly.

Because of all the constant mental calculations, social situations are usually very tiring for autistic people, even when the social event lines up with their interests. In Clorinde’s Story Quest, Furina has no interest in Navia’s suggestion of pulling an all-nighter to keep playing D&D (I mean, Tabletop Troupe!) and wants to go home and rest.

Furina: Huh!? Oh, um… I’m not sure I’ll have enough energy for that…

Furina has shown other signs of needing to take a break from socializing– for instance, in Lynette’s hangout event quest, Lynette gets tired of all the people at her post-performance reception and goes upstairs to a quieter room to find Furina already there.

Furina offers to give Lynette tips on the best ways to slip away from an event, and Lynette misunderstands at first and isn’t interested in Furina’s advice because she thinks Furina loves everything about the spotlight and doesn’t realize how much they have in common. This goes a long way to show just how well Furina masks her autistic traits!

Furina: I see you’ve escaped the crowds to seek refuge on the second floor. Fame can be overwhelming at first, can’t it? Perhaps you’d benefit from hearing about the experiences of a veteran celebrity such as myself?

Lynette: No thanks, I’m good. Pretty sure this’ll be my first and last time in this situation…

Furina: Hey, at least let me finish! I have top tips on dealing with belligerent reporters, slipping away to hunt down snacks during the intermission…

Lynette: …Tell me everything.

Conversely, when alone, Furina will stay up late reading or doing something else that interests her and will not feel the same need to stop and rest, because when alone, there is no need to expend extra energy worrying about socializing properly.

At the beginning of the Fontinalia Film Festival limited event story, Traveler and Paimon go to Furina’s apartment and she answers the door sounding a bit groggy.

Paimon: Did you just get up, Furina? It’s already past noon, you know…

After Traveler chastises Paimon for being rude, Paimon panics and says something nonsensical about how the weather is so nice in the afternoon and sleeping in is fine, actually, and Furina responds that she’s just a bit tired because she was up late reading:

Furina: I was just up late last night reading some novels…

When focused on an interest, it’s very easy for an autistic person to lose track of time and it can be difficult to break out of the focused state and go to bed. (This is a trait that overlaps significantly with ADHD.)

2. Alexithymia is a difficulty with identifying, processing, and expressing your own emotions, and in extreme cases presents as an almost total lack of emotion. Some degree of alexithymia is common in autistic people.

I believe, in the flashback scene below from Act V of the Fontaine Archon Quest, that Furina genuinely did not realize she was upset and did not realize she was crying, which could be explained by alexithymia.

Fontainian citizen: Are… are you crying?

(If you played this part with the English voice acting and interpreted it differently, try listening to it in Chinese- Furina’s voice sounds completely confident and in control the entire time, and it’s not until the other person points out she’s crying that Furina sounds at all upset.)

Fontaine AQ Act V, Chinese audio: (link starts video at 3:22:00) https://youtu.be/T-AbXi5bufk?si=fl8xSwkQ0rRLFPQU&t=12121

I am a believer that Furina and Focalors were originally the same person, and Focalors is just Furina’s divinity and pre-archonhood memories— so if Furina is autistic, Focalors is autistic.

While talking to Neuvillette, Focalors is extremely matter-of-fact with her explanation of her plan, very matter-of-fact about the suffering of her own human self, and very matter-of-fact about her own impending death. There is no show of emotion— she just tells Neuvillette the facts. This could be related to alexithymia, but regardless it is a very autistic way of communicating that is often misinterpreted as cold and uncaring. In actuality, someone who is willing to sacrifice their own immortality, divine power, and freedom to save other people’s lives cares a great deal, even if the tone of their voice doesn’t reflect it!

Focalors: I mean, did you think I would be the sort to enjoy peaceful repose while Furina suffered?

3. The autistic nervous system takes in a lot of information that a neurotypical person’s would filter out as not being important enough to bother with- this is why autistic people are so much more sensitive to sounds, lights, textures, and any changes in the environment. Too much sensory input can actually feel painful.

There is a documented instance of the Opera Epiclese becoming so loud that Furina was overstimulated enough to yell at everyone to be quiet.

Furthermore, post-Archon Quest, after moving out of the Palais Mermonia and into her own apartment, Furina eats primarily macaroni for an unspecified amount of time— weeks or months on end. After a huge life change, it’s common for an autistic person to want anything they can control to be the same, so their brain has more space to process everything that’s different.

There is no neurotypical explanation for eating the same food over and over to the exclusion of everything else. It makes no sense to someone who doesn’t experience overstimulation and distress at too much change. Case in point, during Furina’s Story Quest, Traveler and Paimon are rather baffled:

Traveler: …Don’t you get sick of macaroni every day?

Furina: Not at all. As long as you have different kinds of sauces in, you can have macaroni and tomato sauce one week, macaroni and bolognese the next…

Notice that Furina says “macaroni and tomato sauce one week,” implying that she’s fine with just that sauce for an entire week, and then uses a different sauce for the next entire week. Still not very much variety!

Paimon: Oh, sounds like you’re really struggling to cope… Traveler: Is it because you have to do all your own cooking now?

Yes, Furina is struggling to cope, but not because she’s incapable of learning how to cook more complex dishes! She’s just too burnt out to want to make or eat a variety of things right now. Furina explains this and Paimon doesn’t believe her, but since we know that Furina’s special dish is an even more extravagant version of La Lettre a Focalors, if Furina is capable of baking at that level, she would certainly be capable of cooking.

4. Stimming, or self-stimulatory behaviors, are repetitive actions that serve to regulate or soothe the nervous system. There are countless behaviors that can be used as stims, but some common ones are rocking back and forth, hand flapping or waving, leg bouncing, skin picking or scratching, rubbing or squeezing a comforting object, dancing, spinning in circles, humming or vocalizing, or listening to the same song on repeat for hours. (It’s worth noting that stimming is not exclusive to autism— especially when stressed neurotypical people do some of these things too. Stimming can also be commonly exhibited by people with ADHD who aren’t autistic, although there are also a significant number of people with both ADHD and autism.)

One of Furina’s idle animations and also her normal attack sequence include behaviors that can be interpreted as stimming. Furina’s idle animation with Surintendante Chevalmarin involves her holding the seahorse up, waving her around, squeezing her tightly and rubbing her face on her head. Chevalmarin is made entirely of water and loves Furina dearly, and so does not mind being cuddled like a stuffed animal.

If you use all four of Furina’s normal attacks, she spins around several times and the final attack culminates with her spinning on a bubble and swinging her sword for AOE. If you use just three of Furina’s normal attacks and do not append any additional actions, Furina spins around again before plunging the tip of her sword into the ground (I do not have a gif of this). Furina also spins around when added to your 4-character party. That’s a lot of spinning, which certainly makes it seem like a preferred stim!

5. I got this far without mentioning special interests because I have so much other evidence that I hardly need to bring it up— but since it’s a much more commonly recognized autistic trait than many of the things I discussed at the beginning, I will include this part of Furina’s teapot dialogue, which does indicate that Furina engages in special interests:

Furina pretty much defines “special interest” with the above statement: it’s something that you’re interested in (to the point that it may feel like an obsession) and you have to know everything about it!

These are just a few examples of autistic traits that Furina exhibits— there are absolutely more. Furina is shown many times to have a high level of near constant anxiety despite being someone who is confident enough to perform on stage. This anxiety could come from other sources, like c-PTSD, but it’s very common for a high-masking autistic person to have chronic anxiety from being hyper-aware of avoiding potential social blunders, repressing stimming to appear more “normal,” and dealing with the increased risk of overstimulation that comes with repressing stimming.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading! Even if you don’t agree with my interpretation of the character, I do genuinely hope you learned something about autism.

[drdemonprince]

thanks for your response to my question about knowing what you want. that's broadly what i've been trying to do, though dealing with long covid and being very conscious of not getting it again makes in-person stuff... tricky. i've been trying to do something nice just for myself for my birthday (in kind of a reclaiming manner, as it was a very much not good day for most of my life) and was completely blanking on the question. (i have a lot of difficulty imagining things i've never done/experienced for some reason.) guess i'll keep on taking baby steps and hopefully figure this out better sometime

It's *very* common for Autistic people to have trouble imagining themselves doing something they have never done before. I once had a HUGE meltdown at the doorsteps of a haunted house because I had no idea what the floorplan would be, when actors would be jumping out at me, how long the experience would be, or anything else to expect. I NEVER went to half of the gay clubs in town until someone I was seeing finally brought me, and I finally learned what to expect of going to a bar on my own. I truly did not conceive that public spaces were "for me" just as much as they were for anyone else. I experienced most of the world as this shadowy, forbidden world that I could not understand and did not have permission to access until pretty recently, in the grand scheme of things. And I certainly felt immensely guilty having a birthday and DARING to want to do anything for it, especially not something everybody would like.

But there is a way out of this! One of the ways is to simply try new things - there is no true self inside of us with hidden true desires and habits that we can just magically find and unlock, rather the self is an active becoming, a process of trying new things that sound appealing or that we simply wish to learn more about, and potentially becoming the type of person that does them (or, conversely, learning something about ourselves in the process if we try something and find we do not like it).

If you cannot imagine yourself experiencing joy, happiness, belonging, you can probably at least be curious about something. This was how I became a furry: I was intrigued by the idea of Furfest, and so I went. I didn't consider myself a furry when I went. I didn't put any pressure on myself to enjoy it or to belong there. I considered myself something of an anthropologist studying a cool subset of human culture when I first attending in 2018. While I was there, I also decided that trying on some antlers in the dealer's den might be interesting. It turned out I liked it, and I grew closer with other people in that community too. Eventually through repeated adventures and trials it became a thing I enjoy. Most of my hobbies and passions have evolved similarly -- I wrote a short story because I was bored, and then years later I had lots of writer friends and a career, I attended a local comedy show because I had nothing to do, and then I tried out for one, and then I was in the comedy scene.

We are what we do, and that means that who we are can always change. It can always expand and deepen. If we cannot currently access much joy or genuine passion, we can find it -- by pursuing new things and taking an interest in life, in whatever ways we can. And of course, if you are Autistic, I do recommend doing research and googling about various spaces and subcultures and social mores in advance, so you know a little bit more of what to expect, which will help the concept of going to crystalize more in your mind. But there's nothing quite like trying it!

Let me know what you decide to try as a birthday adventure for yourself. Good luck!

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for calling my mother and MIL selfish, insecure, pieces of shit over a friend's necklace?

Some background: I, 25F, just married the love of my life, who we'll call J.

I was introduced to J in our junior year of high school by our mutual friend, who we'll call G. G has always been a super important person to us. She is one of our best friends, and the three of us are very close. She was actually the first person we told when we started dating. We are both pretty protective over G, as she is autistic and has crippling anxiety and struggles a lot day to day. She was actually living with us when this story occurred because she had been spiraling on her own, and her parents lived too far for her to commute to her work from their house. She's been in therapy for years and has been doing a lot better than when we first met her, but we still tend to be pretty protective over her, as she has very few friends besides us. We often joke that she's our practice kid because she goes everywhere with us and has a complete lack of common sense despite being one of the smartest people I know.

In the last week of our junior year, J gave me, G, and another friend of his, necklaces that he made. They were nothing fancy, just pieces of rocks that he carved (?) and tied a string around, but G loved it. It acted as a reminder that she had people who cared about her when her anxiety spiked, and she's worn it almost every day for the last 9 years, to the point where J replaced the string with a thin chain because it broke from use. It's a comfort item, and wearing it is part of her routine.

Another important thing to note is that J and I both have pretty bad relationships with all of our parents. Both of our parents are messily divorced, and the only ones we visit regularly are my dad and stepmom. We still decided to invite all of them to the wedding and involve our mom's in the wedding party to avoid drama, and because some small part of me still wanted my mom to be involved in my wedding like a real parent.

Shortly before our wedding, I was talking to my mom and J's mom in our kitchen about some details for the wedding party and the bridesmaid and groomsmen accessories. I made a joke that no matter what we picked, G would be wearing her necklace. They wanted to know what I meant, and while I was explaining, G came into the kitchen to grab a snack. (Side note: neither of them like G, and my mom in particular has made several abelist comments in the past about her stimming or lack of social awareness) When I was done, my mom turned to G and asked if she was going to wear it at our wedding. Confused, G said yes, and my mom lost it. She called her disrespectful and accused her of trying to break up me and J because J gave her that necklace, and it was bad manners to wear a present from the groom or something. J's mom backed her up and said a lot of awful things I won't repeat, but were really abelist, arophobic (G is open about being aromantic), and included several slurs.

I was completely blindsided. I knew they had those awful opinions, but I had never heard them do anything even remotely close, and I sat there stunned at first until G started to cry and hyperventilate (she has trauma around situations similar to this, and she was already on edge because of a recent death in her family). When that happened, it was like a switch flipped. I got between G and my mom, who at this point had gotten out of her seat and was getting close to G. I told them both to get out, and when they refused I told them they were selfish, insecure, pieces of shit, that they had no right to say any of that to G, and that just because they couldn't keep their husband's didn't mean they had any right to interfere and try to create problems where there weren't any.

At this point, J came home and saw G panicking and immediately reacted. He told our moms to leave, and this time, they left. After they left, it took us almost 2 hours to calm G down from her panic attack, and the whole time, I was boiling with rage over the interaction. After she fell asleep, I told J what had happened. He was completely on my side, and we even discussed banning them from the wedding unless they apologized. G has been far more supportive of us than they have been, and if I had to choose, I would rather have her by my side on my wedding day. Ultimately, we let G decide since she was the one they went after, and she said she would be okay, so they came to the wedding and thankfully didn't mention the necklace at all. However, they told our respective families what happened, and I've been getting texts from family members telling me I went too far in bringing up their divorces, and that I should apologize, especially since the fight was over something as small as a necklace.

I don't think I was wrong to defend G, but I know I tend to overreact in situations where she is involved, and J is as bad as I am. So, AITA?

What are these acronyms?

[shelaghdette]

headcanon with evidence: shelagh turner is autistic/neurodivergent!

intense interests: shelagh's special interest is obviously the science of midwifery. she's only 30 years old at the beginning of the series, but already her expertise is virtually on par with the older nuns. her deep knowledge is very well respected by her patients and colleagues. she also LOVES to talk about it, you can see her face light up every time she has a chance.

hyperfocus: when shelagh is completely absorbed in a task, she struggles to notice anything else around her. for example, in the very first episode, she doesn't even notice jenny is in the room when she comes to inform sister julienne about her latest delivery. when sister julienne introduces her to jenny, she only very briefly acknowledges her, and then goes back to talking about work, which ties into -

struggling with social cues: in scenes with lots of shelagh dialogue, notice how she struggles to make prolonged eye contact. a notable exception is sister julienne and, later, patrick, but this makes sense. a lot of autistic people struggle to make eye contact generally, but have a few "safe people" with whom it's a lot easier. shelagh also struggles with boundaries, indicated by her lack of ability to ask for help when she needs it or say no when she's asked to do something. she can also be very blunt and forthright about her opinions, such as when she tells jenny to "please stop wittering on about vegetables, i could not care less." she wasn't trying to be rude, she was just indicating her disinterest in the subject in a very to-the-point way. also, when she was infodumping about the bri-nylon nightie, and CLEARLY misunderstanding cues that patrick thought she was extremely sexy in that little get-up 😳😏

stimming: shelagh is CONSTANTLY stimming. most notable are her hand movements, she fidgets with her hands a lot, and when she sits at a table, she often keeps her hands below the surface. i believe this is so she can subtly stim without attracting attention. oh, and you know the autistic stereotype of velociraptor arms? well, i give you...

masking: she's a social chameleon. her speech mannerisms were much more formal and clipped while she was still in the religious life, because she was holding herself to a certain standard, even though it's not necessarily required (look at sister evangelina). i think she was trying to model her behaviour and mannerisms on sister julienne, which is SO COMMON for autistic women to copy the behaviour of someone they admire in order to blend. she also "mirrors" body language, seen here. (both have their hands in their pockets, their legs are the same width apart. also peep my babygirl not making eye contact AGAIN while he's directly looking at her face!)

exaggerated facial expressions and emotive tone of voice: it's a common misconception that autistic people always have monotonous voices and flat facial affect. some do, but just as many are the complete opposite and actually have really varied expressions and tones. ctm fans who don't like shelagh tend to point this fact out about her, but to me it just makes her relatable, because i'm a really emotive autistic person too!

also, this is just anecdotal, but all of my autistic friends who watch ctm agree with me that shelagh is most likely autistic. and we're really good at identifying autistic traits in others.

these are just my observations from watching the show, as an autistic person. if you don't share these views, that's fine! but please be mindful of what you say if you aren't neurodivergent ♡

[coldflasher]

i was listing to your podcast episode and i was wondering if can you elaborate more on your autistic/(and i think?) adhd barry headcannon? i'm very curious to hear more.

Oh boy can I!

So take this with a grain of salt in that after being diagnosed I now see autism everywhere lmao (extremely ironic that so many autistic people literally develop a special interest in autism, go figure) but I actually think there's a LOT of textual evidence of behaviour that aligns with the diagnostic criteria!

Hyperfixations/special interests

Barry often exhibits signs of having what could either be considered hyperfixations and/or special interests throughout the show, including becoming incredibly hyperfocused on certain ideas or tasks, like catching the man in yellow, stopping various villains or metas of the week... Examples of long-term special interests would obviously be science in general, as well as researching the impossible (he had a blog about this and was known to run away from home or travel long distances to investigate these happenings. Incidentally, running away is very common in autistic kids and as I'm sure you'll agree, very appropriate for him as a character haha). He has a strong tendency to infodump about the science stuff. He also often fixates on solving situations and pushes the people around him too far because they're not as laser focused on the thing as he is (this becomes a biiig pattern for him later).

Social difficulties

When we meet Barry, aged 25, he has one friend that we know of, and that's Iris. Other shows will often have an ep or storyline where we meet a character's old friend who's back in town or whatever, but this never happens with Barry. His only friend is (on a technical basis) his adopted sister. He was bullied pretty brutally as a kid, allegedly because of his loud insistence on talking about his mother's murder and the mysterious man in the yellow lightning, but arguably even a traumatized NT kid would catch on pretty fast that talking about that loudly in public is not a great social move lmao. He does end up with quite a few long-term friends, but I'd argue that Cisco and Caitlin aren't particularly neurotypical either lmao so it checks out, we tend to attract one another.

At work, he works in the crime lab by himself, not interacting with other CSIs. He's hypercompetent at the actual CSI work but struggles hugely with the social demands of the work environment and with how to conduct himself in a professional capacity. The only work colleagues we DO see him interact with (at least until later seasons) generally seem to view him negatively. Captain Singh is visibly impatient with him, and Barry's constantly putting his foot in it with him. Chyre also doesn't seem to be a fan of him. Julian actively goes out of his way to get Barry fired. Even in just the first 2 eps of s1 he's repeatedly said things that his colleagues view as inappropriate and been scolded by Joe for "embarrassing" him by letting his mouth run away with him in an unprofessional manner (aka, difficulties adjusting his behaviour for various social contexts).

Strong sense of justice

Having an incredibly strong sense of justice and morality is a common autistic trait. People sometimes interpret this as "autistic people are inherently more moral than allistics", and that's not true, of course. What it does mean is that we're more likely to have a very strong sense of what we perceive as morally right or just, and it can be more difficult to get us to act in ways that go against those beliefs. It's also common for autistic folks to either be intense rule-followers OR to disregard rules that don't make sense to us (usually due to some social hierarchies that we aren't interpreting in the same way or just don't really register, or that don't make sense to us) and I think this definitely applies to Barry. He's incredibly focused on getting justice for people, and he's willing to break rules he sees as unimportant (like uh. Contaminating evidence by working on crime scenes he was involved in... being a vigilante in general... keeping metahumans locked up in his basement) but then he also gets Ralph fired from CCPD for (iirc) planting evidence, because he sees that as wrong and unjust, even though the perpetrator HAD committed the crime and there just wasn't sufficient evidence for a conviction. (Not saying he was wrong to get Ralph fired at all but there is a certain amount of hypocrisy there haha).

He also clashes really hard with Julian in this way, because (in my opinion) they're both autistic but it's presenting in very different ways. Julian is an "I'll follow all rules exactly to the letter autistic" (see him getting mad when Barry tries to leave work less than five minutes before his work day officially finishes) whereas Barry is an "I'll follow rules that I understand as important and that personally make sense to me, and ignore the rest" autistic.

Stimming

This is more true of season 1 Barry but he's a very fidgety boy. He's always messing with his hands and touching the hair over his ears. This is a small thing but a character detail I really love.

Motor function issues

In the first seven minutes of the pilot Barry has already crashed into multiple people. Enough said haha.

A lot of these traits get toned down in him over time, but he's often described as slow and shown to be clumsy, bumping into people and knocking things over. Whenever he doesn't have or use his speed they really emphasize how he struggles physically: he's described as running extremely slowly "even for a normal person", and when he plays baseball in s5, he's unable to catch the ball (he may have been playing this up to help hide his identity but it seems from the way Iris is sympathetic towards his struggles that he just genuinely isn't a good player).

There isn't much or any textual evidence of him having sensory issues or sticking very firmly to a routine (quite the opposite actually, this man is pure chaos) but that could be because of the novelty-seeking; autism and adhd symptoms often "cancel each other out" in some ways, and it's apparently quite common for folks with both to have one they skew more towards that kind of hides the symptoms of the other.

Here are a couple of ADHD things:

Time blindness

When has this man not been late for work? Before he got his speed he was always late. Even WITH speed he's late half the time.

Organizational issues

He's always standing people up, forgetting about commitments, showing up late... again, this could be because he's juggling so much in his personal and professional lives, but...

Impulsive behaviour

From the NHS ADHD criteria:

excessive talking (see the infodumping and getting himself into trouble at work by going off on inappropriate tangents)

acting without thinking (see literally everything he's ever done in his life. how many times have the people around him torn him a new one for taking a risk or doing something stupid?)

little or no sense of danger (again. see literally everything about him. the man runs around the city in a red suit saving lives with little or no thought towards the risk or potential costs to himself).

So yeah, I clearly have spent a lot of time analysing him and his behaviours lmao, tune in soon for my "Rogue Air" episode where I will monologue for an hour about autistic Leonard Snart

[theravenkin]

been thinking a lot about low-empathy adam parrish (via @parrishwife here and @crimeronan here ) and i'd like to add that i also think ronan is low-empathy, but in a different way, and that this difference is what causes most of the conflict between them (in this essay i will-)

so basically, in very simple psychological terms there are two main sides to empathy. on one side, you've got cognitive empathy- the ability to see things from another person's perspective in an objective manner and understand why they might be feeling a certain way even if you don't feel "for" them; however, you might think that they are overreacting. then there's emotional empathy, which is when you see someone having strong emotions or going through something tough and you feel "for" them, sometimes literally; you might feel nausea or pains in your chest from experiencing someone else in emotional pain, or you might feel elated when someone else is happy or excited. that doesn't necessarily mean, though, that you can see things from that person's perspective; even if you feel for someone, you might not think that they're coming from a place that matters because you can't put yourself in their position. when both of these main types of empathy are present, then you can also have compassionate empathy, which is like both working together- you feel for someone and can see things from their perspective. people with low empathy may struggle with both of the main types of empathy, but some may only struggle with one while maybe being hyper-empathetic in the other type; i'm pretty sure the latter is common among autistic people. i, for one, have very strong emotionally empathetic reactions to things, but i have a really hard time seeing things from others perspectives; so while i may feel really bad for someone, it can be hard for me to understand why they feel bad in the first place.

okay. now. blorbo thoughts.

i think that while adam has an easier time with cognitive empathy (though still struggles with it a bit), he has not developed a very strong sense of emotional empathy at all. whereas, on the other hand, i think ronan is hyperempathic when it comes to pure emotions, but has a very very hard time with cognitive empathy; the way he thinks tends to be more egocentric, meaning it's hard for him to remember that other people don't always think, feel, or process the same way he does (this is what i struggle with, personally, but i think ronan struggles a whole lot more with it).

i could go pulling a bunch of textual evidence, and god do i want to, but lord i ain't got the time. so im just gonna point out a couple things ronan does: he often hugs and comforts people when he feels that they're upset (and he often notices when people are upset before others do, when they're trying to hide it etc) but he doesn't care if these people want to be hugged- he just does it. the only person he doesn't do this with is adam, i think because adam is one person ronan works really hard to understand. ronan also tends to say things without thinking or caring about how they might make people feel, but he still feels so strongly himself (re: bronan "i'm not proud of it" "i'll be proud for you", ronan, read the room). he feels for every dreamer, even those he hasn't met yet, and that empathy drives him so crazy he goes and does a bunch of questionable things in order to try to make things better for people. but he cannot imagine any justification for why adam didn't text him back within a couple hours other than that adam now hated him suddenly (essentially, can't understand how adam doesn't know what ronan is thinking without communicating it).

ronan's inner monologue is very frequently about himself and how he's feeling; when he talks about others, he describes what they say and do and look like, but can't seem to explain how they think or why. adam, in comparison, is constantly psychoanalyzing the people around him, trying to understand why they do what they do and how they tick. part of this is his analytic nature and part of it is the remnants of a survival tactic- the need to understand his abuser, get inside their head, in order to avoid or prevent the next blow. but i think, too, all this analyzing has divorced him from feeling strongly for others, once again, as a survival tactic/coping mechanism- because he believes that as soon as he feels for someone, he becomes them and loses his autonomy. this is only beneficial when dealing with abusers, though. so when he's dealing with his loved ones, adam has to parse through their actions, codify their behaviors and what they mean, and establish heuristics of how they think in order for him to not cross a line and hurt them without meaning to. i feel like i can say more on this but it's late and im tired and i am no psychologist, just autistic and insane about characters

so i think that this difference is a lot of what makes pynch work (the impulse/impulse control dynamic or the right brain/left brain dynamic, but much much deeper and more complex obvs). but i also think that this is where most of their conflict comes from. ronan feels so deeply for and about adam, so much so that he doesn't know how to process it and it eats him alive. but even still, he can't quite understand why adam works the way he does, why his motivations are what they are, why he holds the values he does; usually, ronan just accepts that adam is adam and life goes on, but sometimes ronan gets so frustrated that he can't just accept that adam does things that- to ronan- make 0 sense. (think of the garage fight scene, just before the hand lotion, where ronan tells adam he should just quit school- a pretty tone deaf thing to say, knowing adam, but ronan was getting frustrated and couldn't understand why adam needed to keep working himself to death.) then there's adam, who typically understands where ronan is coming from, but doesn't understand why ronan feels so strongly about things, especially other people- especially him. he struggles to understand why ronan keeps helping him despite being told not to- which is why ronan does things without asking (ie, the rent), because he knows adam won't understand. adam may understand where ronan is coming from, but sometimes he just may not care. he doesn't want ronan to feel badly, but it's hard to motivate yourself to do something about it when you can't understand what the fuss is all about. think about the fight over the green mantle envelope: to adam, it's practical and logical, and he doesn't understand why the whole thing is upsetting to ronan or why he should care- if it gets the job done, doesn't matter how unpleasant the process is. ronan, however, doesn't care as much about practical; he can't understand why adam thinks this is okay, because he has such a hard time understanding that others have different values and priorities than he does.

anyway. this took so long to write. someone please read it and understand what i'm saying.

[psi-spectacular]

Since I saw @kibasniper111 do this for the campers, I wanna do some headcanons I have for the interns! Also they get sadder as you go down, be warned.

Raz

Trans kid who's fully accepted by his parents. Sorry I just really can't see the aquatos being transphobic and genuinely don't think transphobia is super common in the psychonauts universe? He's unlabeled at the moment and uses he/him pronouns.

Nona mixing up Raz's name with his brothers is because her brain had to connect Raz now having a boy name and connecting that to the other brothers so shes just a lil confused but shes got the spirit

He has (currently) undiagnosed autism, mostly because 1. there is no way the aquato family is able to afford a psychologist but 2. Augustus is also autistic and they have similar mannerisms, sensory issues, and stims so most of the family doesnt suspect that Raz is neurodivergent, they just think he takes after his father.

His helmet and googles are very much comfort items, but they also help with sensory issues. While they block out noise and reduce color in the area around him if needed, his helmet also stops him from constantly hearing the thoughts of others, which can easily overwhelm him.

He's mostly able to speak to smaller animals, mainly rodents like mice, rats, and squirrels, since they were the ones that were most common at different areas he would travel too.

He fell into water and almost drowned when he was little and that was the biggest thing that spurred the "hand of galocchio" thing.

Raz spent a lot of time in libraries and bookstores in the many towns he's traveled to in between practice and shows, and that was the way he discovered both his love for psychology and true psychic tales.

Raz is sensory seeking and douses everything he eats in hot sauce and spices. He'll try pretty much anything as long as its free and remotely edible. This extends to touch, he likes rubbing his hands on textured surfaces, especially velvet and fur.

He rubs his gloves on his face, bites, and scratches at them when he's stressed, so they're worn down where he's done it.

He has a plush toy Nona made him when he was a baby that used to be a rabbit but it's been repeatedly bitten, crushed, splattered in mud, and fixed so many times that it barely looks like a specific thing anymore, But he refuses to part with it no matter what.

His relationship with the junior agents goes from "eugh its weird having a kid here, we can't swear anymore." to "hello, this is our emotional support 10 year old, his name is shitfuck, we feed him moss, he's the golden retriver that keeps the cheetahs in our hearts from going insane, we constantly make fun of him and if you do anything to hurt his feelings no one will find your body."

Dona taught him how to forage and cook when he was little.

He enjoys dressing up and acting out roles whenever he can, and is very quick on his feet with his roles. He gets into LARPing later in life.

Raz doesn't have a specific specialty, so he's a bit of a jack of all trades when it comes to powers.

Morris

Another trans dude, Wowza. He's been out for a shorter time than Raz, but he's pretty comfortable with where he is right now. He's also bi! Woo.

He's peruvian, and was orphaned at a very young age before being adopted at around age 5 by his moms. He's currently 16.

He was one of Milla's orphans, but he was very young when the fire happened and he doesn't remember what happened or Milla, but his back did get injured in the fire and never fully healed, and that's why he's in the wheelchair.

His moms are rockabillies who own a motorcycle repair shop in the outskirts of Trujillo, They're big into 50's american culture and almost always have the radio on to whatever rock station is playing at the time, which helped inspire his love of radio and older fashion style. The albums he plays on KLOB are the only ones they let him bring because they were copies of records they already had.

He has a regular wheelchair with, you know, wheels, but when he fully learned levitation he found it easier to move around with a chair on a lev ball, especially on rougher terrain, so thats what he usually uses.

Despite his amount of Rizz he has no clue that Adam has a crush on him (not totally his fault, Adam's attempts of flirting are stuttery at best). He's just. Slightly oblivious to the feelings of others.

He acts like he doesnt care what people think. He very much does, and has some very overcompetative tendancies.

He and Gisu met in the motherlobe and have been part of the intern program for the longest, spending three years doing dumb shit in the woods while brushing off their intern duties or whatever they are.

He immediately took Queepie under his wing and they end up becoming really good friends, even if he isn't the greatest DJ. Cause he's, yknow, like 8.

Gisu

She/Her Intersex transmasc bisexual. Binds.

She's an Iranian immigrant who lives in a small town in the midwest, Same town as Lizzie and Norma. They're families know each other and they're childhood friends.

AuDHD and NPD.

She's an only child and lives with her mother and grandparents. She's slightly spoiled and they pretty much let her do whatever she wants, as long as she doesn't get arrested.

She's autistic and has a special interest in paleontology and robotics. She was part of her school's robotics team before joining the psychonauts.

She's very much a romantic, but tends to leap into crushes quickly and gets her heart broken.

Speaking of, she and Norma are QPPs.

Morris and her are besties and each others hypeman.

She has a tendency to work on her projects late into the night to the point of not noticing that its three in the morning by the time she finishes something.

She's easily able to focus on something that interests her, but if she doesn't think its something she would like to do, she procrastinates and avoids it like the plague. She gets easily distracted when she finally does get started.

Has a fursona. Its an otter.

BIG Boy band fan. All paul but also n-street, synced up boys, and whatever she can get her hands on. She doesn't care if its considered "trashy", it sounds good to her ears!

Also daft punk.

She loves Dion for his lack of swag and dumb barry b benson ass expressions

She was raised muslim and is personally agnostic but Sam convinced her Jesus and Moses were psychic and she constantly pisses Norma (catholic) off by bringing it up.

She's smart and gets good grades but doesn't have much respect for authority. She has A's and B's despite skipping most of her classes.

Adam

Transfem gay, but currently unaware of his gender, mostly from repression and not feeling the need to go too far inward. (Dont all guys wish they could wake up in the body of a girl and have no one question it and call him a she?) She/He, 16 years old.

She's from a rich, very influential family in britan known for having a lot of successful and gifted members. There's a lot of push for all the kids to do something "big" with their lives, and many begin to achieve that at very young, most having scholarships and awards at young ages.

And then there's Adam. Her biggest achievements are being

Truman's intern and that time she reached the quarterfinals of the county debate tournament. She's surrounded by ivy bound prodigies and musical geniuses and she's just… some history buff. She fades into the background noise, and feels like she's failing her family despite his best efforts.

Not fully conscious of the amount of wealth his family has. What do you mean your family doesn't send you 80 dollar tea overseas every month?

On a lighter note, He's taken it upon himself to become a bit of a "big brother" to Raz because he has a sibling around his age and he reminds her of them. She's trying to teach him how to play tetris. • As mentioned before, he has a crush on Morris but is terrible at flirting. He's one of Morris' few listeners on KLOB, but mostly does it because he enjoys hearing his voice.

She and Lizzie are absolutely TOIGHT. Lizzie immediately pinned her as a dweeb first time they met and she was right. They became a lot friendlier over time and were pen pals when Adam went back home after their first year.

Adam's eyes are all funky because he's got extra strong aura reading abilities, but the downside is that he basically goes blind for a while sometimes and has to orient around the world by seeing others auras and how they reflect off and affect objects.

Had a cringey katana-and-fedora phase when she was like 13. He tries to repress the memory. Her friends won't let her live it down because they have photo evidence.

Telekinesis specialist

Sam

CW For parental neglect, bullying, and parentification. Hoo boy lotta thoughts here.

Genderfluid Xenogendered Lesbian but not fully out to people who aren't the other junior agents. 14 and uses any pronouns but mainly she/her publicly.

Her family life is... strained. She lives in a pretty small town in the middle of nowhere, southeast america. Her family was normal when she still felt like a kid, but after Dogen acidentally blew up a bullies head, it became a frantic rush of lawyers, policemen, and hospital visits.

Since her parents were frequently away trying to figure out ways to mitigate Dogens abilities and find ways to settle the lawsuit they got, Sam would spend many hours alone. She quickly had to figure out how to cook and gather food outside to sustain herself because they would sometimes be in too much of a rush to prepare anything or be gone for longer than expected.

As things started to calm down, her parents would leave her alone with Dogen while they went off doing whatever else, and when they came back they would be too tired or too stressed to help her with anything.

She spent most of her days in the companionship of animals, almost always got up whenever Dogen was hungry or sick or had a nightmare, just to feed him and make sure he was okay.

Her parents basically treated her like a third adult when she was like 10, venting to her and letting her do most of the chores in the house when they were away, and they never really left her with a babysitter because she's "so mature for her age".

She has a strong fear of developing it herself, so she represses her anger. When someone is being mean to her and she starts focusing more on not blowing up than whats happening so she gets an unfocused look which leads to more teasing.

She eventually decided to just play into the "stupid weird girl" role, hoping being the butt of a joke in a friend group and making people laugh would help ease up her anger if she just laughs it off as her being dumb. (This ended up leaking into her and Norma's relationship and was part of the reason why they broke up.)

She did actually get in prison! She had a meltdown when the teasing became too much and attacked one of the girls in her "friend" group. She got sent to juvie for that. Her parents had to get a lot of recommendations from Compton to get her into the intern program and send her away.

The anxiety is genetic!!! Yayyyy!! Same with the autism.

Her trauma's left her with a very dysfunctional view of relationships and uses the animals as a way to feel like she has some control over her life and that she isn't a servant, she can lead too and help others improve themselves. This ended up leaking into

Heavy backstory stuff outta the way, back to the present. Sam's nickname is barncat because she runs off in the middle of the night and comes back the day after covered in mud and whatever else. She's basically made herself queen of the questionable area and forages for food and scrap metal at night. also she occasionally hacks up hairballs. no one wants to know why

Despite her.. questionable pancakes, Sam is actually a very good chef! She's just better at using more dubious ingredients.

She has PCOS and is on birth control to regulate it (projecting...)

Also IBS! She gets random tummy aches a lot and has zero clue why it happens.

Sam's kinlist includes raku chan gregor samsa and that canary she saw once when she was a kid

Sam constantly masks back home and the motherlobe is the only place she feels she can be weird and free. She used to have longer hair but she lopped it off sometime during her internship because dysphoria (i hc its like end of summer so near the end of the intern program that year)

Sam ends up deciding to become Raz's weird older sister. Sam has no braincells, raz simultaneously has a lot of and no braincells at the same time, but when they're together they somehow add up to -7. She gives Raz advice that ranges from suprisingly helpful to very dubious

She really does love her grandpa, even if she's seen less and less of him throughout her life.

Her specialty is zoolingualism, but I think she'd be skilled at abilities that require her hands, like Psi-Punch and confusion bombs. She used mental connection to create a lasso of sorts she calls "critical thinking" which lets her lasso enemies and tie them down.

Norma

Cw for emotional abuse and manipulation.

Norma's a trans girl, who uses she/her pronouns exclusively. She's a lesbian, 15 years old. She's also Afro-Filipina.

I've mentioned this, but her mother is the mayor of the town they're from. They've very much in the higher rung of their town when it comes to wealth.

Norma's mother is very cold and analytical, constantly seeing most things she does as transactional. Every positive interaction is a step towards a vote, every negative action reflects badly on her status. Average politician. This extends to her daughters and how she expects them to act.

She's the kid that's always trying to be on her parents good side, because failure isnt tolerated in their family and definite high expectations for both sisters and how they're supposed to behave. The two of them constantly needed to fight to get their mothers affection and love. But Lizzie's pretty much given up on trying to appease her, so despite her powers being seen as "less rare", she's the preferred child now.

Her mom uses her as a token of "I'm not transphobic! I have a trans kid!" Despite, in private, constantly misgendering her and insisting she barely change her name (norman to norma) You know how transphobes are a minority in this verse? Yeeep. Its better for her mom to pretend her views are something else so she can get more votes.

Should I add the two of them had a catholic upbringing? Big amount of guilt on her end but at the same time a sense of superiority and entitlement. She's devout and retreats into religious studies as a coping mechanism

Raz makes her feel threatened in her status as "#1 student" and she's very aggressive about it.

She's still not over her and Sam's breakup and is slowly starting to obsess over her and why it ended.

Norma is a big fan of detective shows like Columbo, Sherlock, and Death Book. She absolutely wants to be a detective and solve mysteries, part of the reason why she joined the intern program.

She has NPD, BPD, Autism, and struggles with insomnia.

Despite her last name, neutral to christmas.

Shes a teachers pet and would remind the teacher of the homework just to piss a specific person off.

Touch averse, only lets people she trusts touch her.

She's a closet weeb and uses her psychic abilities to make her glasses glow like an anime character

She has a sherlock based tumblr (or livejournal or whatever you want them to use) and gets into ship discourse at 3 am. She also writes amateur death note yaoi. On paper. She gets so embarassed about it she burns it as soon as she's done.

She misses the time she spend with her sister and envies how much freedom she has from rebelling against her parents. She wishes she could do the same but also wishes they could go back to normal so Lizzie can have a seat at the dinner table again.

She can do glassblowing with her hands.

Lizzie

Same CWs as Norma, Cw for emotional abuse and manipulation.

She's closeted genderqueer and a lesbian, uses They/She pronouns. She and Norma are twins but Norma insists she's the older one.

She's just given up on her relationship with her parents. No matter what they do, she isn't going to go back to constant competition and stress. She doesn't want that anymore. The Natividad sisters give off "rich parents in a gated community" vibes but Lizzie abhors their entire lifestyle and spends like 90% of her time outside the house doing random shit

She's realized the privilege that comes with her position, and decided to hang out more in punk spaces and with kids considered "teen delinquents" or "the wrong crowd".

She prefers dumpsterdiving and thrifting over the stuff her parents buy her, stitching and crafting her own clothes is an act of rebellion because they constantly scold her for wearing "Rags".

Her parents finally gave up, deciding to go "Fine, you want to be stubborn? We'll just pretend you don't exist." They give her somewhere to live but otherwise don't acknowledge her existence in the family until she learns to behave. She created a second hangout spot in an abandoned building with her friends and she'd spend long hours there.

She'd rather be a high school slacker who hangs out with poorer punk kids who arent "in the right groups" and actually have a social life than fighting for the spot of "perfect precious angel child" for the rest of her life. No matter how many punishments they give her. She won't let anyone know, but the way her parents treat and talk about her really hurts.

She has undying hatred for hostile architecture and drags Norma along to melt the spikes.

She fake smokes. Using candy cigarettes and using her powers to make smoke because it makes her look cool but she doesn't want lung cancer.

Very into Christmas but more into the gift making and pagan traditions.

She reads vampire romance novels for flirting tips (and also cuz they're her guilty pleasure). She also pretends to be a vampire sometimes.

She enjoys going cryptid hunting and scouring local forums for information.

Hates wearing fancy dresses. Ripped up skirts and suits ONLY.

Introduced Norma to anime, favorite is Akira and fave manga is Battle Angel Alita.

[hyperfixingfr]

I'd like to remind everyone that Hoagie being autistic isn't just a headcanon - it's heavily implied. It may have been intentional, it may not have been. My vote goes for it being completely intentional, however. I mean, this show does have a lot of diverse characters (even if some aren't the greatest representation for their diversity...)

I'm sure we all know this kid is like, super into planes. SUPER into planes. We've seen his room, right? Instead of hanging planets or stars from the ceiling like most kids do, he's got PLANES on the ceiling. For fucks sake, he (very passionately) wrote a presentation on the ENTIRE history of the airplane in the USA. Most kids don't have that kind of dedication for the things they enjoy. Also, no neurotypical kid, at age ten, knows the entire history of the airplane in the USA. It's clearly a special interest for him. He isn't hyper focused on it and putting his attention towards that subject and that subject only, however he does have extensive knowledge on it. That one was probably very obvious to just about every viewer. They don't really hide the fact that he's educated on the topic of planes. Something I do believe he's hyperfixated on, is anything Yipper! related. He's shown to be attached to that specific franchise, and whenever he's watching or reading something, it's almost always about Yipper!. He's never depicted showing interest in other media (beyond the Doctor Who rip off of the universe, which I'm 95% sure was SUPPOSED to be a joke about autistic people), as if he were hyper focused on Yipper! and currently unable to enjoy other media.

(Image depicts his room, which as you can see, is filled with stuff related to airplanes and Yipper!)

Onto something a little less noticeable. Hoagie has an unusual set of obtained knowledge. He can be considered mediocre at just about anything in terms of knowledge, yet he happens to know facts that not many people know (or care to know). It's not directly stated, but he doesn't have the best memory when it comes to things you literally just told him. Somehow, he manages to remember these facts, and along with that, remember minor details about his friends that they most likely told him long, long ago. This is a pretty common trait in autistic people.

This clip is a personal favorite of his facts and random knowledge. I mostly cropped this from a Tumblr because of the change in tone from Hoagie to Nigel, but I think it demonstrates exactly what I mean.

An even less obvious one is his mannerisms. He often fidgets with his hands or positions them differently whenever he's nervous, mostly near his face. He also stims a lot, vocally and physically. Things like rolling on the floor, repeatedly hitting something lightly, clasping his hands together, biting his nails, tapping his foot, and many more. He seems to have an anxiety disorder of some kind, so this stimming is mostly as a way to calm himself down.

One thing that I know is definitely overlooked is how affectionate he is, especially with his best friend. He gets very touchy with Wally, holding him close very often, standing in front of him in an attempt to shield him, holding his hand, and at one point even kissing him on the cheek in a S6 episode. He's touchy with Tommy, too, as they tend to hug very often. Some autistic people hate touching others, but there are quite a few who actually feel touch starved and need to feel physical contact with people close to them. He's also very affectionate verbally, too. He's often trying to compliment his friends, and even stated in an episode that he's "a bit of a softie" for defending Joe(?). He was shown in a very early episode feeling sad because of a mistake he made that caused everyone to feel annoyed with him, which can be linked to high empathy (along with everything else affectionate he does). He seems to avoid verbal conflicts, and seems especially emotional after any conflict he does get into. He seems to suffer from too much empathy.

Summary: he's just a silly little guy

[soullessjack]

Ok I have question! It's a pretty common take in SPN fandom that Cas and Jack (& sometimes Sam) are autistic or autism-coded. Is that problematic because they are literally nonhuman characters? And I guess side questions - will nonhuman characters always come across as autism coded because of their innate otherness? How could the line be drawn between the two via characterization so that inhumanity and autism aren't mistakenly conflated?

Please feel free to ignore if this ask in no way brings you joy 🫶

hi!! this actually brings me So Much joy thank u for asking :D

it might depend on the person you ask, but for myself and a majority of the autistic community it’s not problematic at all! autistic people very commonly relate to nonhuman characters (aliens, robots, angels in trench coats, etc) in the same way queer people have historically related to horror monsters like Dracula and the Creature from the Black Lagoon (interestingly enough, many horror villains were actually intentionally queer coded due to the Hayes Code not allowing positive/supportive representation of most minorities)

I don’t think the defining characteristic of an autistic coded character is that they’re nonhuman, but that they’re often written with traits autistic people display — lack of social awareness, blunt communication, etc — or even with the same experiences as autistic people. for example, i related a lot to Zane from Ninjago and his struggle with a sense of humor (i do understand some jokes, but sometimes they just aren’t funny to me). after the reveal that he was actually a robot, it turned out that his lacked sense of humor was because of a literal “funny switch” built into him that had been turned off the whole time. of course I didn’t know I was autistic then, but it still l felt like my own brain was being shown to me onscreen.

there’s definitely a conversation to be had about the ableism that goes into some of these characters; after all, if they aren’t being made by autistic people or with autistic representation truly in mind, then they’re just associating autistic traits with robots and aliens and other things not of this world. it follows the same logic of Punching Up vs Punching Down. autistic people and disabled people overall struggle with the idea of being burdens to others, but it’s one thing for a person in that community to create art that expresses their feelings and experiences in possibly being a burden, vs a neurotypical abled person creating art that depicts disabled people as completely burdens.

****

this is a slight detour from the main road but:

from 2020-21 my mental health was at the lowest it had ever been for a Lot of reasons, but namely that I was struggling with school and just figuring out that I potentially had adhd and autism. I used to draw my persona with a lobotomy scar back then, including this as my one and only vent piece:

of course I knew the horror and medical abuse behind lobotomies (it’s been a very in-and-out interest for most of my life), and of course I knew that they were never a solution, and I never once intended to portray them as anything otherwise, but back then I wanted so badly to just be Fixed and Normal instead of being The Way I Was and struggling because of it that the concept of a lobotomy and the symbolism behind it became my way of coping for a short while.

(I doubt it matters but I have somewhat improved since then and my lobotomy scar is now just a zombie face stitch :P)

***

anyways, I don’t think nonhuman characters will always be considered autistic, nor should they be seen that way inherently, because not all of them are written with our traits or experiences in mind. Like: Omni-Man is an alien, but he isn’t autistic [coded]. He doesn’t show any specific traits for mannerisms; his storylines don’t have any similarities to autistic experiences. Nothing about his character could be interpreted as autistic. but if they’re written with the express traits and experiences of an autistic person, like Cas and Jack and Zane, then they’re free game to be considered representation.

There’s also some nuance to the idea that nonhuman autistic characters could make a conflation between actual autistic people and inhuman creatures, but look at queer people and horror monsters again. there’s elements of tragedy and forbidden love, of grappling with a Hidden Side Of Yourself and being a misunderstood monster in classic horror which resonated and continues to resonate highly with queer people. should we dissuade all that since bigots already conflate us with predatory monsters? or can we joke about how they see us, satirize it to hell like Rocky Horror? Is it truly ours to reclaim if we can’t make a few jabs ourselves?

representation doesn’t always have to be perfect or sanitized to be representative of us — especially if it’s being reclaimed by us. in fact, it often serves a better purpose to truly show what our lives and experiences are like, rather than something sanded down to the basic shape of us. it’s really simple; we as Weird, Othered people very often find odd comfort in the Weird and the Other. again, it’s not the general consensus, but I know that I feel the same way about autistic representation

That’s the only line I can see that makes sense to be drawn.

this ended up being longer than I thought it would but I had fun answering it! I hope it’s helpful :3 🫶

[thegayneurodivergentagenda]

hi hello pran autism anon here again!! i just watched ep 4 again and i noticed at the scene when pat comes to give pran his earphones, and lets himself in, pran repeatedly expresses his distaste at the fact for two reasons. yes, he doesn’t want pat infringing on his privacy or messing up his meticulously arranged living space. but it's the other reason that intrigues me when looking at pran through an autistic lens. he repeats that pat entered without being let in. he's very bothered not only by pat's actions, but also the fact that pat is breaking a social norm. as an autistic person, i find that i tend to feel uncomfortable when i see other people not follow social norms, which i feel is because i've had to consciously learn these and remind myself to follow them for years. i feel like pran is having a similar internal experience here, where he's seeing pat do something that isn't considered 'socially acceptable', which bothers him because he has a script in his head that he's built up over the years, and this doesn't follow the script that he uses to dictate what is and isn't okay to do, what does and doesn't get him acceptance from his peers etc. he then comments that pat 'has no manners'. i think this is a pretty common thing that many autistic people have experienced, being told we have no manners because we unconsciously broke an unwritten social rule we never learnt about. pran, in my opinion, can't help but project the rules he's learnt to help himself fit in and mask onto other people. it might be a very small detail to focus on, but it's something that really got me thinking.

thank you for reading my rant about literally three lines of dialogue!! hope you have a great day!!!

I love you anon.

I know you didn't technically ASK me to rant about Pran's relationship w his room but I have too much to say and I hope you're okay w that.

So

Pran and his room: from the lens of autism

1. As someone with autism, social rules and norms that we agree with are set in stone. So your analysis about Pat breaking a social rule makes a lot of sense. Especially when you see the other interactions at the food stall and music shop (you're not supposed to sniff people????????????)

2. It's also likely that he's very transparently present in his room. For people with autism, our rooms are our safe spaces and worst nightmares because they reflect so much of who we are. If they are messy, It's our mess. If it's organized, It's customised to our space. Rooms, dorms and other living spaces are basically a self portrait.

Which is why when Pat dares enter and sneak a peak at his barest self, lit with fairy lights and faces telling him how to smile, rituals along every curve and table, he feels scared. What if Pat notices his smilies and thinks he's still a child (he should have overcome the hyperfixation by now? Will Pat understand?) What if Pat notices his coffee stained couch and calls Pran on being an imposter who only pretends to get angry at messy stains. There's so many ways Pat could see behind his carefully constructed masks.

His apprehension from pat entering could be from not letting Pat see him.

And that's also why he holds the social norm of asking before entering so close to his daily functioning; revels in the safety of enforcing this rule rigidly.

[I sometimes liken this to the idea of a nest in the omegaverse where it's extremely personal and reflective of the person making it. I also love the omega verse so much because it takes a lot of neurodivergent traits and makes them seem normal and that's just another post altogether]

3. When Pat and Pran finally get their shit together Pran let's Pat change his room and make the space theirs. It's the biggest declaration of love if I've ever seen one. He let's Pat put up photos and shares his bed and doubles the Pillows and makes space for Nong Nao. All because he's ready to allow Pat in his space. Across the rituals. Inside his safety.

4. The fact that the most crucial of the moments (The Kiss, The Bet, The Ming) happen away from the safety of his room goes along with this and his canon OCD.

If you're living with OCD, safe spaces can turn into compulsions at the sight of threat. And the fact that he was so adamant on keeping the relationship behind closed doors felt a lot like stemming not just from his anxiety about his parents but also his imposter syndrome: It's a glitch in the matrix that Pat likes me back and we should not test the matrix lest it remind Pat I'm an annoyance that he rather not deal with.

If you have autism, the safety of your room provides familiar and clear cues that could be helpful if an emergency is to arrive (I could just start talking about the rotting food if conversations get tougher// I could go to my own washroom and pretend to take my time if I feel overwhelmed). These safety nets are not present Outside.

And it is through his autism that Pran shows his love to Pat.

He let's Pat break his rules constantly. Not because they don't cause him discomfort. They still do. But his love for Pat is just greater than that.

He will let Pat drag him outside. Let Pat post photos of him. Let Pat make a mess on his kitchen table. Go with Pat to an unknown room.

As Anon said, these rules and norms and safe spaces are all in place because of being reprimanded for being neurodivergent by the neurotypical system builders. They are precautions to avoid being hurt or being called out on the fact that they don't belong.

But Pran doesn't feel hurt in Pat's presence. Because regardless of if they are friends or enemies, they've always belonged together.

[lakesbian]

Any thoughts on a fitting implement for Blake or Rose? Or for any of the Undersiders?

i will declare right now for my own sake that i shannot discuss the matter of the undersiders as practitioners presently or i will enter an autistic fugue state regarding alec vasil and we will never finish getting through all of the pact questions + resume reading the book. I will continue fermenting my opinions on this matter and return to it at a later date when i have more information to confirm my thoughts.

as for blake: The Stone. no i'm just kidding to make fun of him. it would really be helpful if i had more information on All of the most common implements but i get the gist well enough.

first of all i will state for the record that i do not think blake's aptitude with glamour (as of 3.5) is actually even remotely indicative of his approach to being a practitioner. he's not fucking confident at all with it! glamour is quite literally "fake it til you make it" but magic--if he was intuitively skilled at it, you would expect him to respond to rose's "haha i hope this works or you're fucked!" with "pshh of course it will work," but instead he nervously goes "i hope it works also :(" and then proceeds to sweat bullets the entire time. and despite being constantly paranoid that his glamour is going to be seen through, despite being a complete amateur with it, he gets so into it that it not only holds up largely perfectly but starts seeping into his cracks and emotionally effecting him. as rose put it, It's Not Supposed To Be That Easy. and the fact that it Is despite him...not really being very good at it, i think that indicates more of a weakness he's occasionally able to leverage as an advantage (albeit at intense personal cost) than a genuine talent. that man is getting Corroded. get corroded and subsumed by the violent expectations your family has set for what you were Supposed to be, you fucking nerd.

anyway. as for his actual approach thus far, he's like. hm. as i discussed some during arc 1, he's extremely willing to roll with the punches (& punch back) when he needs to. as much as being humiliated or acting violently upsets him, he can take it And dish it when it's necessary 4 survival. he really really really wants to climb to better circumstances and have a peaceful home and a family comprised of people who are good to him & whom he's good to in return. but ultimately he's extremely familiar with being homeless and beat down and viewed as less worth than dirt, and it's a misery he knows how to force himself through. which is to say his practitioner approach is Miserable Desperate Scrambling by a dude with a Scrambling Degree. he's exceedingly direct so far. he finds out how faeries work and then immediately fights a faerie by literally just telling her how faeries work. he's not, like, utterly lacking in self-preservation during negotiations, but he's pretty direct about attempting to State How Something Is in a convincing manner instead of attempting to mislead people. he responds to finding out that maggie killed his cousin by telling her to fuck right off instead of using her guilt to get a better deal like he could've. etc. ultimate move of Hit You With Pipe or Try To Call The Cops On You (Again) because he simply does not have enough of a knowledge or power base for anything more indirect or clever as of yet. not inherently opposed to trickery per se but thus far he's preferred to feel like all of his actions are some level of morally justifiable, and he's distinctly targeting people who have made the most notable moves against him.

i was sort of hoping that writing all that would make an idea magically pop into my head or brain but it did not. it would be cool if it ended up being a mirror. i can't defend that statement but i think it would be cool! let me see. i think something unique and somewhat decorative in a way that bolsters his personal identity would be fitting, because he stakes a lot on personal identity. he values his body being His to exist in and express himself with, he likes art, he likes having nice new things. i think an implement which bolsters his own sense of self & makes being a practitioner something more comfortable + confident would be a good balance to how thus far it's just sapped him and degraded his identity. something stabilizing, in a way. is that anything. but a talisman doesn't fit, because he Is pretty brash and concerned with the real. something unique and somewhat decorative but with a clear purpose and very direct/blunt application? still struggling for precise objects here, but i think talking abt the Idea behind an implement for him instead of just naming an object is fine.

[artemissoftstepper]

thinking about the animals i think of as part of myself and trying to analyze why i relate to them as this goes lower down the less prominent a part of myself the animal is

bunny - bunnies feel to me like the most all encompassing animal i consider myself because they simultaneously are soft and cute while also being highly sexually active and symbols of fertility and they’re also prey animals so they simultaneously represent my ideal self, a major part of myself which i despise, and my fear of being harmed by people especially sexually harmed additionally one of if not my oldest stuffy is a bunny

sheep - once again cute prey animal that is a very large part of myself, i also think of myself specifically as a domesticated sheep which makes sense because i frequently feel that i have very little control over my own life, that i am only cared about by the people in my life for what i do for them, and that without the people in my life i wouldn’t be able to survive on my own and would be taken advantage of

sharks - i strongly relate to sharks for three primary reasons they cannot survive without hurting others and i frequently feel like the things i do that make my life bearable are hurting the people around me (despite assurances otherwise), they’re frequently characterized as evil despite not actually harming people very often which between the parts of myself i consider morally wrong and the fact that large parts of my identity are demonized by other is deeply relatable, and they’ve become a symbol of transness thanks to blahaj

deer (and cervidae in general) - another cute prey animal who would’ve guess, i really relate to how jumpy they are as i’m frequently an anxious mess as for the larger cervidae they’re more an idealistic relatability in being prey animals that can readily defend themselves or take its killer with it

butterflies, moths, and phoenixes - all beautiful animals which symbolize rebirth moths i especially love because they’re frequently seen as being ugly or a nuisance and i relate strongly to changing yourself for the better in a way others view as wrong i relate to phoenixes especially strongly because dying is inherent to their rebirth and i relate to that both as someone who struggles with suicidal ideation and who views my pre-transition self as an entirely different person who is now dead and that i’m just living in his old body

kitty - cats are rather complicated because i don’t really see them as a large part of who i am but i have a strong fondness for them and acting in a catlike manner i think the reasons i relate to them are because i’ve had cats for most of my life so they’re very familiar to me, cats are frequently used by other trans and autistic people to represent themselves (via catgirls and “all cats are autistic”), cats express their emotions very clearly in a way i struggle to, and cats are very common in pet regression and pet play content which i find very affirming/calming

puppy - similar reasons to cats although i relate to them a bit less and like them less than cats

i didn’t specifically mention it for any animal but i have noticed lots of these are animals either subservient to or hunted by humans

other assorted animals i consider part of myself usually on a similar level to cats and dogs i just don’t have much to say about them: bees, dragons, bats, werewolves (i know this isn’t an animal per se), foxes, stingrays, and animalistic monsters in general

feel free to psychoanalyze me based on the animals i identify with and my other posts i’m stupid and need either a lot of time or it being directly pointed out to notice things about myself and worse case scenario your wrongness will help me sort out my thoughts since “that interpretation doesn’t quite feel right” is the first step to further questioning and understanding

[lumine-no-hikari]

Dear Sephiroth: (a letter to a fictional character, because why not) #27

I'm more than a little dejected today. A new trailer of your upcoming game was shown to us today. In it, they painted you as this evil, horrible person. Some people in my world talk about you as though you were rotten and awful from the time you were born. Some people in my world say that you've been so abused by the world that you are now broken beyond hope of recovery. Still others say that, because of the way you were made and how you were raised, you're so different from and alien to everyone else that there's no possible hope of you ever belonging anywhere.

…The end result of all these thoughts, naturally, is that many people in my world think that the best thing that can happen to you is for you to be "put out of your misery" as though you're nothing more than a rabid animal, as though there is nothing more to you than the mistakes you've made, as though you (and others in my world who are similar to you) are not a sentient, thinking, feeling being, capable of being spoken to or reasoned with. Having empathy for you is VERY unpopular here, and it is a great way to become further ostracized, even amongst those who may or may not also consider themselves misfits.

I feel heartbroken about this sort of thing. Even if you were absolutely devoid of empathy (and you've shown time and time again that you are very much NOT devoid of empathy!), that's still not an issue of morality - that is a brain wiring issue. Some people really are born with problems in the parts of their brain responsible for empathy; it is not their fault. When that happens, it requires proper supports to be put in place so that they can thrive without hurting others despite their condition, not judgment, persecution, and demonization. Anything less is ableism. And I live in a world rife with ableism, and lots of other very unpleasant "-isms" and "-phobias" that prevent certain kinds of humans from being treated like actual people.

Sadly, it is also the case that I live in a world where, when people make mistakes, especially if they think the person should have known better than to make a mistake, people tend prefer the metallic, sanguine taste of retribution and punishment over the sweetness of mercy and restoration. It's for this reason that the cycle of pain continues ad nauseam in this ridiculous and terrifying place.

I'm scared that I'm going to have to prepare myself to watch you die a second time. I don't really know what else to do to help you, so in the trailer that was shown, I put a small wish for good things. Good things upon Cloud and his friends. Good things upon your world. Good things upon you, especially.

…People laughed at me. One of them said something to try to make me feel small, stupid, and worthless. For whatever reason, they seem to lack the necessary empathy and critical thinking skills required to understand that the way stories are told in my world ends up weaving the fabric of society and influencing how humans view and therefore treat each other and themselves. Stories, by and large, are thought experiments that people then apply to the real world as moral templates and as patterns of speech and behavior.

What this person failed to see, as well, is that real people in my world are already treated in much the same way that you are treated in yours. While the way you are treated is broadly applicable to any human who is "othered" in my society, when I look at you and consider the way you think, speak, move, and behave… when I consider your mannerisms and general way of being, you look very similar to neurodivergent people in my world. In particular, your general existence seems to have a lot in common with autistic people. Or, rather… I am autistic, and a lot of your behaviors, mannerisms, speech patterns, movements, and general way of holding and carrying yourself look a LOT like mine. To an almost eerie extent, even.

…And… I know for sure… If I had spent a week straight not eating, sleeping, or hydrating in favor of reading wildly inaccurate books (this is called hyperfocus; it's an autism/ADHD thing)… I also would have taken everything I read at face value (literal interpretation of information and assuming by default that what's being said or written is true is another autism thing). If I had taken everything at face value… spent my life being used, abused, and exploited by people (we have that in common), been led to believe that humans are why there are no more people like me in the world, been led to believe that my mother (we know Jenova is not your mother) is being held captive somewhere and subject to cruel experiments… watching in despair as those who call themselves my "friends" witness me struggling without trying at all to help, looking at all of the people around me who are complicit in this kind of horror…

Sephiroth, if the old version of me had your phenomenal power, and was subject to your exact same circumstances, I… I don't think I would have been able to make a better choice than the one you made. I don't like the choice you made. It was terrible and inexcusable, and I'm sure you regret it very much at this point. But I still don't think I would have been able to choose differently than you. I would have been too angry, too full of despair, too emotionally unstable from being starved, dehydrated, and sleep deprived to control my thoughts and impulses… we are all at our worst when we are in states like that. And for a person who was taught that compassion is weakness, that violence is the answer, and that directly asking for help and support is not an option (we have this in common, too; I've since unlearned this nonsense), it's almost impossible to make kind, merciful, loving choices when we're at our worst. It's almost impossible to simply walk away.

…Truth be told though, I'm not 1000% convinced that the place wasn't already on fire before you walked out of the library. I saw what Shinra did to Banora, just because Genesis had gone over there. To get rid of anything that might make Shinra look bad, they firebombed the whole place, razing it to the ground, and killing everyone there, whether they were involved with the madness or not. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Shinra had decided to firebomb Nibelheim, just because they knew you were digging around in their secret archives. It wouldn't surprise me at all if you came out of the library either just before they finished or just after they finished, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if people saw you in the middle of the wreckage, assumed you did it, and then tried to attack you for it; I've got a couple memories of trying to clean up something my stepbrother broke, only to be discovered partway through, being accused of having been the one who did it, being accused of only trying to clean it up because I wanna try to hide what I did, my explanations and protests being taken as lies, and getting punished accordingly for it, while my stepbrother laughs in the background. Circumstances are different, but the mechanics are the same, if it was the case that Nibelheim was firebombed by Shinra.

You might be asking how any of this relates to my world. And the answer to that is simple:

People tend to assume the worst of intentions when it comes to anyone who is "othered" by society. Marginalized people catch flack for doing the same exact things that "normal" people do. When "normal" people scrounge food from an abandoned, wrecked store after a storm, it's called "finding resources". When black people do the same thing, it's called "looting". When "normal" people bring up a similar personal experience to show another person that they understand what they're saying, it's called "empathy". When autistic people do it, it's called "making it all about themselves". When a father brings home pizza for his children, it's called "being a fun dad". When a mother does the same thing, it's called "being a lazy parent who feeds their children junk food". I could list so many more examples, but the main point is this: if you are in any way different from what society at large considers "standard", people will tend to interpret everything you do as either hostile, manipulative, lazy, or some variation thereof, no matter what your actual intentions are. And then when you try to explain your intentions, people will think, "you doth protest too much" and dismiss your explanations as "excuses" or outright lies.

And you are very different from that which is considered "standard". You're very tall. You seem to have hypomelanosis. Your long hair removes you from presenting as "traditionally masculine". You're intellectually gifted. You're very physically and magically capable. You present as someone who is very much not allistic. You're a survivor of horrific abuse. You were raised as an orphan. With these and so many more things, you stand out.

So then, of course nobody pays attention to the fact that you don't judge what people are capable of by their sex/gender or age; they paint that as "ruthless" instead of as "unprejudiced". Of course when you encourage Angeal and Genesis to take the title of "hero" from you by besting you in a friendly sparring match, they accuse you of being arrogant. Of course when you act shy and socially awkward, people instead interpret "aloof and cold" (we very much have this thing in common). Of course when you demonstrate how amazingly capable you are, people aren't going to see someone who is trying his best to help; they're going to instead see a showoff who is full of himself (we have this in common, too). People overlook the fact that without hesitation, you offered yourself for Genesis's transfusion. They overlook the smile on your face and the love in your eyes as you recount some of your memories to Zack. When you're a human that is classified as "other", your goodness, no matter how large it is, gets overlooked in favor of focusing like a laser on your flaws, no matter how microscopic they may be.

And the opposite holds true as well - If you're "normal", your flaws get minimized while your good aspects get magnified. It's why people love Rufus Shinra and the Turks, despite the fact that they are responsible for FAR more deaths than you, either directly or indirectly, and even though they threw some ACTUAL HUMAN TRAFFICKING (we saw this in Before Crisis) into the mix, just for funsies. Somehow, even though you did your things to try to build a world in which no one else should have to suffer in the same way you did, and they did their things solely for the sake of profits and for maintaining an economic chokehold on your planet, they do not see Rufus or the Turks as evil. Even though the siphoning of Mako would kill the planet just as surely as Meteor, they still don't see Shinra and the Turks as evil. Or if they do, it's not nearly to the same extent that they see you as such. And this would baffle me, if not for the fact that these people are wealthy (in Rufus's case anyhow), allistic-presenting, possessing of a "normal" skin tone, and looking far more "traditionally masculine" than you do. It's very frustrating.

I understand the mechanics of why people get "othered", and I understand the mechanics of why people think it's okay to be harsh and cruel and dehumanizing to "othered" people. But I don't have the energy right now to articulate these things. Maybe I'll get into it in some other letter to you, but for now, I'd end up writing a book (I might have basically turned today's letter into a book by accident anyhow…), and I'm a bit too tired for that.

So, suffice to say: I know why people are so mean. I really, truly do. But at the same time… why in hell are people so goddamn mean all the fucking time??? Why does "I wanna tttyfck Tifa's bewbs" get all the loves and supports and likes, but "Let's wish for good things upon everybody" gets indifference, derision, or hate??? How does that even work???

I'm tired and I want to go home. I'm tired of the trope that is, "abuse survivors are ticking time bombs, liable to snap anytime without reason or warning". I'm tired of the trope that is, "some people are damaged beyond repair, so it's foolish to even bother trying to help them". I'm tired of the trope that is, "autistic people are evil, emotionless robots devoid of empathy". I'm tired of the trope that is, "people who make mistakes deserve punishment and death". If they write your story a second time in a way that ends with you being slaughtered again, it will simply reinforce these tropes, and reinforce broader cultural trends that influence how people like me get treated in this world.

And… I'm tired of being laughed at for wishing compassion and mercy upon other people. I'm tired of screaming love into the void only to receive indifference, revulsion, and derision from others. I'm tired of my kindness being viewed with suspicion and mistrust. I am tired of being branded as insincere, dishonest, or "too-good-to-be-true". I'm tired of all the subtle and not-so-subtle ways that this world and most of the people in it tell me that I don't belong and that I'm not wanted and that I should just disappear so that nobody has to deal with me anymore. I'm tired of all the ways that people seem to enjoy hurting me and others, meanwhile I'm always supposed to be the bigger person and neither fight back, nor give tit for tat. I'm tired of, "we can fix this" being met with doubt, cynicism, and churlishness - part of the reason we can't seem to do anything about the looming climate crisis and the endless wars and the continued oppression of "non-standard" people is that nobody wants to listen to the people who know how to fix these problems. And from this… I'm tired of seeing my friends and my loved ones struggle and get hurt while trying to live in a world that is actively hostile to most living things. I try really hard to keep my chin up and be good all the time because I've lived through horror and know how I don't want to be, but… I'm still only human.

That being said… as much as I wish I could disappear, as much as I wish, every night before I go to bed, that something will happen in my sleep that makes it so that I don't wake up again in the morning, I'm still not done here yet. I don't know exactly what I'm supposed to do while I'm here - even when people do ask me for help, they tend not to listen to anything I say because I do not live in the kind of body that most people are willing to take seriously (because I am "othered" in a variety of ways), and when I do kind things, people generally wonder what my ulterior motives are (spoiler alert: I have none). My hands and my voice feel bound almost all the time. And so I kind of just wander around, aimlessly and directionless, wondering what my existence is even supposed to be for. But I do know that I've not yet met all the people who I will make smile. I have not yet met all of the starfish that I must try to toss back into the sea, like the boy who walks along the shore in that one story. I have not met all of those people who, seeing me dried and stranded on the shore, will try to pick me up and toss me back into the sea.

I can't succumb to the pull of the quicksand yet, tempting as that thought sometimes is. So when I get like this, the only thing I know to do is to try to reach out to someone else who might understand and know what to do. I try to hydrate. I try to eat. I try to rest. When things seem hopeless, tending to myself and trying to connect with the safe people around me sometimes helps. When things seem hopeless, sometimes I write to you, even though I know you will probably never see any of this.

There are far fewer safe people in the world than there are borderline (or outright) violent ones. But still, safe people are everywhere if you keep an eye out for them. I just gotta try to focus on that knowledge. After all, the Horse from the story about the Boy and all his animal friends has very good advice: "When the big things feel out of control, focus on what you love, right under your nose."

I'm scared for you. Scared for me. Scared for the people I love. Scared for my world at large. There are just so many things going on. But I'll keep going; what other choice have I got? I can't go around leaving Lumine-shaped holes in the hearts and souls of the people who care about me by exiting this place prematurely, right?

You can't go around leaving Sephiroth-shaped holes in the hearts and souls of the people who love you, either, got it? Promise me. Please.

I already had an epic sandwich today, but maybe I'll get me some mac-and-cheese, too. Mac-and-cheese fixes most things, at least temporarily. I hope someday that you'll be able to sit someplace comfortable and eat a warm, delicious bowl full of mac-and cheese; it's good for the soul, even if it's bad for your arteries, hahaha!

I'll write again soon.

Your friend, Lumine

[noperopesaredope]

The Encanto Neurodivergent Discourse: A Retrospective (Kinda)

So I was thinking back on the Encanto neurodivergent discourse that occurred after the movie came out, and I realized that there was a huge misunderstanding between the two sides that caused the main part of the discourse. So I decided to do a small retrospective type thing on this discourse, my opinions, and where each side went wrong/misunderstood the other’s argument.

So, first let’s start with the elephant in the room: Bruno. If you’ve seen some of my posts on this topic, you know where I stood/stand. Of course, my opinions have slightly altered to become more neutral (or at least softer) on this particular point, but I would still like to explain and unpack where each side went wrong here.

In my personal experience, the reason that multiple neurodivergent people believe/believed that Bruno is neurodivergent isn’t because of his superstitions, but because of multiple of his other mannerisms, as well as how it ties to one of the themes of the movie, or at least what he represents in terms of the main theme. I originally thought to myself, “oh my god, this bitch be autistic,” not when he started doing the rituals, but actually when he was first introduced and how he spoke to Mirabel. He stared at her for a few seconds before abruptly saying “bye,” and brushing past her. I (and others) have actually done this in real life, sometimes mid conversation.

His speaking mannerisms are also very familiar, with the way he rambles and how his phrases things, as well as how his sentence structures flow. And when he was explaining stuff about his visions, we realize that many of the visions mentioned in “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” were likely just regular predictions, showing that he is likely very blunt. The wedding incident, as he explained, was mainly just him not at all reading the room or knowing how to properly comfort his sister. This is common for people with things like autism, and likely other neurodivergent things that affect socializing. It’s less about the rituals, and more about the socialization style.

Now onto to talking about how OCD works and why Bruno’s rituals are seen as parts of OCD. I myself have OCD (very mild in terms of most rituals, but very intense in terms of intrusive thoughts, so highly stressful) and a good understanding of the disorder, so I believe I can add my two cents in a credible manner.

OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) is a neurological condition in which an individual will experience unwanted, excessing, persistent, recurring thoughts that will cause the person to engage in repetitive behaviors in order to diminish the amount/intensity of the thoughts.

The reason people felt that Bruno likely had OCD was not really because of the rituals themselves, but how often Bruno did them and when. 

Most people would perform good luck rituals if they saw a sign that something bad was going to happen. For example, breaking a mirror is bad luck, so it would be reasonable to do something that would ward off that bad luck. You could also do such rituals if you needed extra good luck for something, like an important test. I myself do this sometimes (I’m not superstitious, but I’m also kinda superstitious), and it has nothing to do with my OCD.

But Bruno doesn’t seem to just do it when bad luck comes around, or when he needs good luck. He seems to do it a lot more excessively than most people, and it seems that he believes that there is always bad luck in the air. He seems to be doing these rituals repetitively.

And I honestly think that, because his rituals originate from his culture, it makes for better representation. You see, OCD rituals typically aren’t completely random. While things like counting tiles can be “random” rituals, the most likely way OCD will manifest is tied to the nature of some of the intrusive thoughts, as well as some of the individual’s other fears. Their rituals will then often be tied to something familiar or even something comforting. While this is not always the case, it can be. For example, say someone has OCD, and a majority of their intrusive thoughts revolve around germs. This may cause them to persistently clean their hands, and they will do this repetitively, even when they have no reasonable reason to believe that they are “contaminated.”

In Bruno’s case, his thoughts most likely seem to be that he is bad luck, causes bad luck, or bad luck is at every turn. These thoughts are likely constant and persistent, so he feels a consistent need to ward off bad luck. This is why he will perform rituals known to cause good luck and ward off bad luck, just like washing your hands will make germs go away. That’s why I think he has OCD.

It also adds to his theme in the movie, which a lot of neurodivergent people can relate to: being an outcast in the family, the one who acts strangely, the one who seems to be “embarrassing” to the family, the one that no one talks about (or they talk too much about). I have family members who can relate to this, because though we have multiple autistic folks in the extended family tree, not many in said tree seem to fully understand what it is like to be on the spectrum or generally neurodivergent. I see multiple of my family members who are like Bruno in that specific way, and it kinda made me cry.

So it makes a lot of sense why people would view him that way.

But here’s where things went wrong. First, many neurodivergent people got so excited about the prospect of having good representation, they got a bit carried away, and, from what I’ve heard, started saying that the movie was about neurodivergent representation, or they completely ignored the Colombian representation. This was obviously very irritating to many Colombians, as this movie was very significant in terms of Colombian representation, and to ignore that was insulting.

When some Colombians started telling people that these rituals were actually a part of Colombian culture, a small, yet significant miscommunication/error occurred. Some of the more (I’m assuming) neurotypical Colombians seemed to assume that those headcanoning Bruno as neurodivergent were basing it solely on his rituals. From that assumption rose a (pretty reasonable) assumption that others saw Colombian superstitions as a whole as solely an OCD ritual rather than a cultural one. 

However, though these superstitions originated from Colombia (and I’m assuming other Latin American countries?), they are not unfamiliar to other countries and cultures. Even the least-Latino people I know were familiar with knocking on wood, crossing your fingers, or throwing salt over your shoulder for good luck. Many of them did it themselves. So I’m pretty sure that most people making the headcanons didn’t see the rituals as “exotic” or “strange”, but it is perfectly reasonable to assume that they did. 

A lot of non-Latino and non-Colombian folks were not completely familiar with Colombian culture or some little details they added to the film, and people who aren’t familiar with certain cultures tend to do that, which is frustrating. And there were definitely quite a lot of people in the fanbase who were constantly ignoring and brushing aside the Colombian aspects of the film.

But instead of trying to clear this matter up and explain why many neurodivergent people saw Bruno’s rituals as OCD rituals, most people immediately jumped to a defensive position, and became dismissive of their concerns over how people were portraying Colombian culture and even ignoring very valid points on how people were brushing over the importance of cultural representation in the film, because whether you like it or not, I will say that the primary representation in the film was cultural.

So many Colombians ended up feeling frustrated, because instead of having a proper conversation about how to interpret this part of Bruno’s character and see why people are perceiving him that way, many Colombian voices and concerns were drowned out, ignored, or even dismissed. Some people even dismissed Colombian culture entirely, and I remember seeing a few people basically say that those rituals weren’t actually a part of Colombian culture, which is a horrible thing to do/say.

The aggressive backlash to the points on cultural representation caused a responsive backlash from particularly frustrated Colombian voices. Though the loudest voices were likely the minority, they still had a strong negative impact. The loudest and most extreme voices essentially began dismissing neurodivergent voices, and even made some very ableist comments. This particular backlash (at least in many of the circles I was in) eventually began drowning out neurodivergent voices who were more willing to explain their stance, which caused its own wave of frustration, etc.

That was the main issue with that particular discourse.

Now for Dolores, that is a whole other story. From what I could find, the main (and lowkey only?) reason that people believed Dolores is neurodivergent is because of her “hm!” that she makes throughout the movie. Some say that this is a tic, others that this is a stim. I think some of us jumped to that conclusion way too quickly. Multiple Colombians explained that that is actually a cultural thing, something that many people do quite often. And they are likely right that this is not a sign of Dolores being neurodivergent. First off, she only makes this noise during very specific moments. If you replaced the sound with “huh!” or even “oh well!”, it wouldn’t feel that out of place. 

It is a response to situations, and specifically when she ends certain statements. So it is less random than a tic. She also never really uses it as a self soothing mechanism or a way to express certain emotions, which is what stims are mainly for. So we can likely rule out stimming. So it is perfectly reasonable for many Colombian folks to be frustrated about this, because it takes one trait and turns it into something else rather than a cultural element.

I think the reason some people may have jumped to the conclusion that it was a stim is because it is actually a very soothing sound that actually became a minor stim for me after I heard it. I don’t quite “copy” some people’s stims, but I may see/hear one, think it looks calming, do the thing, and then it becomes something that evolves into a stim. This is likely the reason that people thought that Dolores is neurodivergent: because they have/like that particular potential stim (or tic). 

Doesn’t really make it any better though, and it is probably pretty annoying to those who know that it’s most likely not a stim or tic in Dolores’ case. Especially since some neurodivergent folks were dismissing Colombian culture in the Bruno discourse, and it gets really frustrating and annoying after a while (or even the second it happens). Having every aspect of one’s culture be labelled as something else is uncomfortable, especially when (I assume) many of the people making these headcanons were White Americans who know nothing about Colombia or even Latin America.

So that is where the neurodivergent side of the discourse were the most in the wrong.

For little things like Neurodivergent Mirabel headcanons? Eh, they seem to be more obscure and are truly just headcanons. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone try to actively prove that she or any other characters are neurodivergent, it’s more just a basic neurodivergent headcanon like any other.

I won’t even get into what went wrong with the “Lesbian Isabella” discourse (especially since I didn’t really pay attention to that one, and this post is about the neurodivergent discourse), but all I’ll say on that is that Colombian lesbians should probably be the ones to decide whether or not we should write Lesbian Isabella stuff. I personally think it can be harmless to portray a character as queer whether they are actually queer or not in canon, but for cases like Encanto, which takes place in a specific country with a specific culture, I think we should always consider what it is like to be queer in that specific country and culture. Not every queer community across the world is going to be the same, and we need to respect that. A queer Colombian will have a very different experience from a, for example, queer American. 

This can honestly apply to all the discourse. The main reason I like the idea of Bruno being neurodivergent is because, as I said in a poem I wrote here on Tumblr, I have an autistic Colombian American older cousin, and her heritage affects her experience with that part of her identity. Most autistic portrayals we see in the media are from a White (and non-Hispanic) lens, and most of the time, they’re not even that good! So for a Colombian person to be seen in that way is amazing. But that type of representation is mainly for those whose intersectionality is never represented. We need to show and respect that intersectionality as much as possible, and should be careful with how we portray someone with that type of intersectional experience.

But enough on that. If you’re reading this part, thank you for reading this giant post analyzing and explaining this specific subject. I hope you enjoyed, and please add your thoughts in the replies and reblogs!